U.S. President Ronald Reagan said “America is a shining city upon a hill whose beacon light guides freedom-loving people everywhere.” During the administration of George W. Bush the light was extinguished.
Robust Response to 9/11
George W. Bush made reference to Ronald Reagan’s famous characterization of the United States on one of the darkest days in American history.
On the evening of September 11, 2001 a grim-faced Mr. Bush went on television to speak to his shocked nation. He told the audience, “America was targeted for attack because we’re the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world. And, no one will keep that light from shining.”
That’s when the human rights trouble started. Mr. Bush, and his vice president, Dick Cheney, decided that in their war on terror they would not hesitate to fight dirty. They were going to operate outside the rule of law.
Here’s how Cheney put it in a February 5, 2009 interview with Politico: “Protecting the country’s security is a tough, mean, dirty, nasty business. These are evil people and we are not going to win this fight by turning the other cheek.”
Waterboarding at Guantanamo Bay
Many of the men in the Gitmo Detention Centre were subjected to what was called “enhanced interrogation methods.” This included sleep deprivation, being made to stand naked in a cold cell for long periods, slapping with an open hand, and a nasty little procedure known as “waterboarding.”
Here waterboarding is described by ABC News (November 18, 2005): “The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised, and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner’s face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt.”
ABC News quoted John Sifton of Human Rights Watch as saying that waterboarding makes the person believe “they are being killed, and as such, it really amounts to a mock execution, which is illegal under international law.”
Author Says Torture Does Not Work
Darius Rejali is a professor of political science at Reed College, Portland, Oregon. His 2007 book “Torture and Democracy” he exhaustively examines the topic of using force on prisoners to extract information.
In an earlier article at Salon.com Rejali attacks head-on the belief among torture’s apologists that its use in Algeria in 1957 enabled the French to win an important battle against terrorists. Having studied the autobiographies of some of the torturers and the now-open archives of the war in Algeria Rejali concludes: “…the French won by applying overwhelming force in an extremely constrained space, not by superior intelligence gathered through torture…In fact, the battle shows the devastating consequences of torture for any democracy foolish enough to institutionalize it.”
He quotes one of the French torturers, Jean-Pierre Vittori, as saying: “As the pain of interrogation began they talked abundantly, citing the names of the dead or militants on the run, indicating locations of old hiding places in which we didn’t find anything but some documents without interest.”
Better Intelligence Comes from Non-violent Interrogation
And, writes Professor Rejali, better intelligence can be gathered by not torturing. He points out that during World War II the British captured all but three of the several hundred German spies in England without torturing anybody. Many of the German agents were, in fact, turned into double agents who radioed fake coordinates back to Germany that directed V rockets to explode harmlessly in farmer’s fields.
A day after being sworn into office President Barack Obama ordered a halt to all torture activity by U.S. forces. He said that by condoning torture America had “lost its moral bearings.” Now, that the dark period is over there may be a return to that “shining city upon a hill.”
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